Police believe Joseph Sweeney, 23, of Oakwood, is the man captured on surveillance video from a gas station moments before Luis Maltez, right, was attacked.

A former Staten Islander surrendered yesterday to police and is being grilled in the savage baseball-bat beating of a Nicaraguan cook that police have classified as a hate crime.

Joseph Sweeney, 23, was arrested as the bigot who confronted 38-year-old Luis Maltez at the convenience store of a Bulls Head gas station at 4 a.m. on June 17, cut him in line and shouted, "[Expletive] Mexicans, this is my country!" He and two friends then descended on Maltez as he and his roommate were walking home from the store and bludgeoned Maltez with baseball bats, police allege.

Maltez needed 18 stitches to close a gash in his head.

Sweeney made some admissions to investigators, though he did not characterize himself as the primary attacker, a law enforcement source said. Police were still questioning him early today in the 122nd Precinct stationhouse, New Dorp; they had been looking to get a formal statement from him and put him in witness lineups, the source said.

The identity of the other two suspects remains under investigation.

Sweeney's face was captured by a surveillance camera at the store. After the image appeared on the front page of the Advance, several tipsters phoned police to identify Sweeney as one of the attackers. Detectives were able to get his phone number and call him, police said, and he turned himself in.

"I am glad they got him so nobody else will have this happen to them," Maltez told the Advance in Spanish. "Nobody should have to go through that. It is not right."

Besides the head wound, Maltez, a cook at the Hilton Garden Inn in Bloomfield who also works part-time at Applebee's in Bulls Head, suffered a bruised right forearm and bruised left ribs. Despite his injuries, he returned to work just two days after he was treated and released at Richmond University Medical Center.

Sweeney -- who owns the dubious distinction of being convicted as a felon before his 18th birthday -- gave police an address in Oakwood, but neighbors there said the residence actually belongs to his relatives.

Until last year, he lived with his mother, Lori Garcia, on Kingsbridge Avenue, according to neighbors on the Bulls Head block. She and Sweeney's stepfather moved to New Jersey, while he ended up in Coney Island, they said.

"That's Joseph. Oh my God, that's Joseph," said one neighbor after looking at the surveillance picture. She wouldn't give her name.

Sweeney still has ties to Staten Island, the neighbor said, since the mother of his child still lives nearby.

Ms. Garcia did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Sweeney's criminal record dates to 2002 and includes arrests for assault, robbery and graffiti. He also has an open misdemeanor assault case from this past May after authorities say he was accused of punching his girlfriend in the face.

In January 2003, Sweeney was indicted on charges that he and another man robbed two teens of their cash, threatening one of them with a bottle and using the bottle to injure the other.

He pleaded guilty to third-degree robbery in exchange for a one-to-three-year prison sentence, though state records show he was paroled after just eight months.

According to police, the baseball-bat attack had its beginnings inside the BP Amoco convenience store at the corner of Richmond Avenue and Victory Boulevard, just a couple of blocks away from Maltez's Leona Street apartment.

Maltez had arrived home after midnight, having finished his shift at Applebee's, and was watching TV with his roommate Nicholas Sanchez when the two decided to walk to the service station to buy drinks.

That's where they ran into Sweeney, who left the store after uttering the epithet, Maltez said.

He met up with two cohorts outside, police said, and the trio attacked Maltez and Sanchez as they were walking home.

Sanchez fled but the men whacked Maltez with a vengeance, police allege.

Police charged Sweeney with second-degree assault as a hate crime, second-degree assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

"I'm happy that the police have apprehended this person, and I hope that justice is served," said Richard Nicotra, the Hilton Garden Inn's owner and Maltez's employer, adding that he hopes the arrest will "send a message" to people to be accepting of every ethnicity. "No one should ever have to go through this."

Nicotra added, "I am committed to my employee, and whatever help he needs in terms of support, I pledge to him. I am with him every step of the way."